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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29840340">strange status quo</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingersfallingupwards/pseuds/fingersfallingupwards'>fingersfallingupwards</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>body language [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Queen (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Arguing, Biting, Body Dysphoria, Brian May's 1974 Hepatitis Diagnosis, Hand Jobs, Insecurity, Just for funsies, M/M, Queen in 1974, Scars from Surgery, Self Confidence Issues, Smut, no beta we die like roger's rap career, remembering illness, self-indulgent garbage, took a break from being pedantic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:15:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,808</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29840340</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingersfallingupwards/pseuds/fingersfallingupwards</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p> Roger pauses. “What? Should I be delicate?”</p>
  <p>Brian thinks about the past feeble months, shaking when he tried to rise, the nausea that consumed his days, being bound to the hospital bed. </p>
  <p>“No.”</p>
</blockquote>OR: Brian has a scar after his stomach surgery. Roger isn’t the type to kiss it better, but somehow it works for them.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Brian May/Roger Taylor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>body language [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076948</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>strange status quo</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>unbeta'd because of YET MORE self-indulgent garbage.</p><p>technically takes place in the same universe as <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28360386">three reasons to unfold</a> but you don't need to read that fic or care about polyqueen since it's all maylor in this house today folks!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>+<br/>
Being self-conscious or embarrassed in front of Roger is almost always a futile exercise. Roger will only either mock the cause or ignore the muddled mess of emotions and pull Brian into an argument he’s waited all day to start.</p><p>“It’s impossible to just shrug it off, Roger,” Brian complained once when Roger suggested he ignore the crawling horror of bashing his head on the door lintel when walking into an interview in favor of starting a row about the lighting model that didn’t <em>need </em>any more green. “You can’t choose when you feel embarrassed.”</p><p>“That’s true,” Roger agreed. Brian’s teeth clenched and Roger continued. “What? Even I’ve been embarrassed by some of my old hairstyles. Speaking of, I'd very much like to not look like a bloody redheaded Irishman, so let's balance the colors out in the back of the rig. It needs more green!”</p><p>Brian shook his head. He bit his tongue against asking ‘Embarrassed when?’ because even if Roger ever had been, he wore it so well no one could notice. Brian isn’t like that. He tightens up all over until his smiles are grimaces and his nails have carved crescents into his palms as he tries to forget hyperawareness of his body and actions.</p><p>The long, curved scar from his stomach surgery hasn’t helped matters.</p><p>Everyone in Queen has seen the scar of course. Dressing for photo shoots and concerts is as public and cloistered as it’s always been. They fight for counter space, fling discarded shirts at each other, Freddie bemoans a melted foundation, and Roger balances on top of an uneven chair to be taller than John in his platform boots. Brian becomes bare in front of them without thought, and it’s only when he looks down and sees the ugly seam of the surgery scar curling around his bellybutton like a carelessly sewn zipper that he remembers embarrassment. Luckily, it doesn’t last when there’s work to be done.</p><p>In the dressing room, their attention is on the perfectionism of their product, of crafting the most flawless and appealing photo or performance in every aspect. The scar doesn’t twinge so much when he’s occupied with that consuming distraction.</p><p>Being intimate with Roger is different. There’s nothing to draw away Roger’s devouring attention, the way he savors each aspect of seduction. Roger grows keen when sex is drawn out, as innuendos are picked up and clothes discarded. The meeting of lips…</p><p>Today, Roger’s already shimmied his knee against Brian’s on the couch in his bedsit, then leaned back to show the vertical slant of skin peeking through his unbuttoned shirt— an invitation for everything. Brian looks and feels hungry for the first time in what seems like a lifetime. He bends in for a kiss, just to taste. It’s good, to have his appetites finally returning; it feels like the normalcy he left behind in that airport in America when he thought he might actually be toeing into his grave. Roger moans into his mouth, releasing a breath into Brian that seems to echo his frustration and relief for pending release, for this return to their strange status quo. He tugs at Brian’s clothes and he stands to oblige.</p><p>Starting something with Roger is always easy and careless, but now facing nudity, Brian hesitates and worries the fabric of his shirt. He wants to be swept away with the moment, with Roger’s eager heat. His mind stalls him, as it so often does. He’s always battled with the long and thin unattractiveness of his body, like taffy left in the puller too long. His hair that tangles between hands instead of sweeping soft like Roger’s smooth cascade when Brian parts it for a kiss. The scar is just another chord that twangs uneasily in his mind when his body wants to race forward but his mind stutters.</p><p>“You sure it’s alright?” Roger asks again, noting his pause. “Are you nauseous?” He’s already staggered up and shed his thin shirt and wide-legged trousers like crinkled leaves, dropping them to the floor. No pants, Brian realizes and feels his brain falter and his mouth go dry. All day he wasn’t wearing any, in the studio, at the pub, when they were arguing with their managers in the corporate office…</p><p>“Please,” Brian murmurs, breathless. Roger takes the request for what it is and crashes into Brian. He eases down Brian’s trousers and pants between mouthing at his jaw. He groans against his ear as Brian’s hands travel down his stomach to fumble with his cock. When Roger swears, Brian obligingly ducks his head to mash their lips together again.</p><p>The shirt comes up and over Brian’s head almost without him noticing as he wavers under the wash of Roger’s attention. Roger pivots them from the couch towards the bed a few steps away in his small bedsit. Brian grunts when he’s pushed down.</p><p>“Rog.” He’s told him before how he hates getting shoved onto the bed, is going to crack his head on the wall one of these days, and then how will Roger sleep at night?</p><p>“Sorry,” Roger murmurs, distracted. Roger splays over him, and it’s a familiar angle for Brian to look down. His own thin chest, Roger’s hair brushing shivery over his skin as he mouths at Brian’s flat nipples. He feels his erection brush against Roger’s backside where he’s kneeling and it makes Brian jerk up and moan. Roger raises his head, showing his smile and the darkened blue of his eyes around blown pupils… but past that, Brian now sees the edges of shiny, newly healed skin flexing where he’s breathing hard and it pulls the winds from his sails.</p><p>It’s like catching himself in a mirror when he isn’t prepared for it, a reminder of how strange and misshapen he really looks.</p><p>Brian tries to throw himself back into Roger, into his consuming attention. He wants to get wrapped up in this game between them… But once his brain has started running on an anxious track, it only gains momentum and speed. He doesn’t know how to turn away from these too-traveled paths in his mind.</p><p>Roger remains unaware of his thoughts, instead, working down Brian’s chest with his tongue, and scooting back over Brian’s flagging erection.</p><p>
  <em>What will he do when he reaches the scar?</em>
</p><p>Roger is a vain thing. The girls he sleeps with are all gorgeous, stunning creatures. They’re often quite clever as well, proving Roger has his pick of the best and brightest. Brian’s quite certain that the sexual energy between him and Roger is more a manifestation of their creative tensions and long friendship than anything else. Roger likes to be worked up and challenged. Brian… Brian admittedly leans on the stubborn link between them. The reliability of falling out again and again and yet never leaving. It’s different than the thing he searches for in women and can never keep ahold of, it’s a stable rock somewhere in the uncertain, murky dust of his mind. Even still, a scar, an ugly one too, is not something he wants to test Roger’s unvocalized affections with.</p><p>He hopes Roger will ignore it, the same way Brian is trying and failing to.</p><p>Roger doesn’t hear his wish (never does). Instead, Roger’s tongue swirls a moment into Brian’s bellybutton before riding the curve up and—</p><p>Brian hisses as strong, even teeth bite into his raised edges.</p><p>“ ‘S that hurt?” Roger asks, head raising.</p><p>“You bit me,” Brian shoots back, unable to hide his irritation.</p><p>“Yeah, but does the scar? Is it alright?” He hasn’t moved since Brian hissed. At length, Brian exhales.</p><p>“No, not more than you taking a bite out of anywhere else… almost anywhere.” It’s worth the joke as Roger laughs, breath cool over the map of saliva he’s traced on Brian’s stomach and chest.</p><p>“Good,” he says, lowering his head again before pausing. “What? Should I be delicate?”</p><p>Brian thinks about the past feeble months, shaking when he tried to rise, the nausea that consumed his days, being bound to the hospital bed.</p><p>“No,” he answers and hisses again when Roger’s teeth dig into him anew. Blunt fingernails burrow into his sides as Roger licks and twists the scar between his teeth. It’s new skin, knotted and seamed and it feels strange and almost shuddery as Roger works it over.</p><p>He finally seems to have taken his fill, sitting up properly and reseating himself on Brian’s thighs.</p><p>“Good,” he says. He pulls their cocks together. Brian hisses at the sensation and Roger pulls back the foreskin and tries again. It’s smoother and hotter and Brian pistons up as Roger jerks forward. “Good. I don’t want to be gentle with you after all this.”</p><p>Roger’s free hand grips bruising over the side of Brian’s stomach, digging his thumb into the scar and it makes Brian gasp, little beads of pre-come spilling over both of them. He remembers the panic on the other’s faces, the thin-voiced yet loud debates in his fuzzy periphery about whether to see a doctor in America or to fly back, deciding his fate when he was unable to. His recovery and Roger’s unsettled horror at his relapse with an ulcer. God, Brian’s overwhelmed with gratitude for life, for living, for pleasure, and this moment of temporary, vital connection. Brian bites his own lip as he comes with great heaving gasps. Roger follows after him, raspy and high-toned as Brian’s stomach is painted with the shiny lines of their release.</p><p>They breathe for a long moment. The hand digging into his stomach finally slackens. Roger leans his head back and sighs, and Brian looks at the long, beautiful lines his body makes in this moment of stillness before Roger startles to action. Roger disembarks and wets a rag in the kitchen sink to wipe a few spots off himself before returning.</p><p>When he touches the scar now, it has none of the friction. He wipes soft over the red marks he’s worked into the skin. It’s the same gentle brush he’s always treated Brian to after sex when this communal tension has finally been exercised. The delicacy makes Brian feel just as shuddery. Roger, bent to his task, frowns.</p><p>“Should I get the iodine?”</p><p>“It’ll be fine,” Brian murmurs. Roger’s touch lingers and Brian shifts. “Not too ugly as scars go, do you think?” His tone is mild and wrung out, and he immediately feels like an idiot for fishing for compliments.</p><p>Roger squints at him in a way that fully conveys that he, too, thinks Brian is an idiot.</p><p>“It’s a scar. It’s not supposed to be ugly or pretty, it’s supposed to heal.” He strokes it gently with his thumb, tracing the whole shape. “It’s perfect for what it’s doing,” he avows.</p><p>And for the moment, Brian doesn’t have a counterargument.</p><p>+</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>.<br/>Thank you for reading! This can be credited to a photo shared by the always fabulous <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/deHavilland/pseuds/deHavilland">deHavilland</a> who also wondered where her fic of someone kissing Brian's scar was. I promptly said Roger would bite it and here we are several months later!</p><p>  </p><p> </p><p>Feel free to interact in the comments if you like, I would be happy~🙇❤️🙇</p><p> </p><p>  <a href="https://rock-it-tonight.tumblr.com/">TUMBLR</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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